Giants rally past Cardinals, one win from World Series

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San Francisco Giants' Buster Posey (28) hits a sacrifice fly to score Gregor Blanco (7) in the first inning of Game 4 of the National League baseball championship series against the St. Louis Cardinals at AT&T Park in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2014. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

San Francisco Giants' Gregor Blanco (7) celebrates his double in the first inning in front of St. Louis Cardinals' Matt Adams (32) in the first inning of Game 4 of the National League baseball championship series against the St. Louis Cardinals at AT&T Park in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2014. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

SAN FRANCISCO — It’s the most basic part of the game, the first skill baseball players are taught as toddlers too young to even know what’s at stake this time of year. It’s the first thing they do every day from spring training until the last gasp of October.

Ballplayers throw.

Except Matt Adams couldn’t in the big moments Wednesday, allowing the Giants to race away with another thrilling victory. The first baseman twice failed to get accurate throws off in the sixth inning, and the Giants snatched the lead and never looked back, beating the St. Louis Cardinals 6-4 to take a commanding three-games-to-one advantage in the National League Championship Series.

The Giants scored the tying and go-ahead runs on grounders to first, continuing their unconventional ways. Over the last six games, the lineup has scored 22 runs, 12 coming on something other than a base hit. As he sat in his office late Wednesday night, manager Bruce Bochy could do nothing but smile when asked about the seemingly unstoppable ground attack.

“I’d love to have homers mixed in here or there, trust me,” he said. “But we’re finding that it’s not our way right now. It was our way earlier in the year, but we adjusted and guys are doing the little things.”

Power has given way to pressure, and opponents continue to crack.

Adams did in the game’s biggest moment, making mental and physical mistakes in an inning that will be remembered for his wayward throws but was first defined by a decision that went against the grain. The Giants trailed 4-3 at the time with both starters, Ryan Vogelsong and Shelby Miller, long done for the night. Left-hander Marco Gonzalez ignited the rally with a walk of Juan Perez, a .170 hitter. Brandon Crawford followed with his first hit of the series, and the crowd edged forward as Michael Morse, the man most responsible for that early-season home run barrage, got ready to hit.

But in the dugout, rookie Matt Duffy grabbed a bat adorned with a cartoon Duffman sticker and replaced Morse. With two left-handed hitters — Gregor Blanco and Joe Panik — coming up, the move made most often would be to stick with Morse and hope for a ball in the gap that would tie the game before Gonzales got his left-on-left matchups.

But Bochy opted for bunt over brawn.

“It’s the confidence I have in Blanco and Panik — they handle lefties pretty well,” Bochy said. “You like your chances.”

Duffy has one sacrifice bunt in his short big league career and had watched the more experienced Perez fail to get a bunt down the night before. But confidence surged through his body as Bochy sent him up to the plate.

The Giants had just 45 sacrifice bunts in the regular season, the lowest total in the National League. Duffy got a high sinker from Gonzales and still put it down, moving both runners over. Bochy believes strongly in pressure leading to postseason mistakes, and with the tying run now on third instead of second, Adams folded.

Cardinals manager Mike Matheny played his infield in to cut off the tying run, and Blanco rewarded him with a two-hopper right at Adams. The lumbering first baseman stumbled and then threw a bouncer to the plate, allowing Perez to slide in safely. When Crawford reached third, he checked in with coach Tim Flannery, who calls Crawford his best base runner — not because of speed but because of instincts. Flannery told Crawford to retreat if the ball was hit to Adams and the first baseman looked home but to break for the plate if he tried for a double play.

It was the kind of throwaway conversation runners have with Flannery hundreds of times a season, just in case, and it would have floated into irrelevance had Panik hit the ball anywhere else. He chopped the ball right at Adams.

“It’s kind of funny it happened that way,” Crawford said.

Adams tagged first and turned for second, never looking at Crawford, who had gone halfway down the line. “I should have checked,” Adams said later. He didn’t, and to make matters worse, his throw to second pulled Jhonny Peralta off the bag, meaning there would be no well-turned inning-ending double play, just another run for the Giants.

They added one more on Buster Posey’s third RBI of the night, and the bullpen bent but didn’t break. The latest strange rally, one Vogelsong said was steeped in “Giants Karma,” made a winner of Yusmeiro Petit, who pitched three scoreless innings to stop the bleeding after Vogelsong lasted just three. It edged the Giants one game closer to a third World Series in five seasons, and they went to sleep Wednesday knowing that ace Madison Bumgarner will be the one trying to clinch a trip to Kansas City.

The Giants were comforted but not comfortable. They needed to take three straight from the Cardinals in the 2012 NLCS to extend their season, and they did. Now, they expect the same fight from the other side.

“We’ve won three, but that’s a number,” Bochy said. “It’s a number you have to get to before the next one.”

With how hard the Giants are pushing, the wait doesn’t figure to be a long one.